How to Read Paul

A Brief Introduction to His Theology, Writings, and World

Yung Suk Kim, Yung Suk Kim

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781506471440
• eBook ISBN: 9781506471457
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

How to Read Paul provides an incisive, yet brief, examination of Paul as a writer and theologian steeped in the cultural, intellectual, and religious crossroads of the ancient world. Through an analysis of Paul's undisputed letters, Yung Suk Kim explores and explains Paul's key theological concepts and situates them in their proper cultural context. By placing Paul in the Jewish, Hellenistic, and Roman worlds that informed his thinking, this book reexamines familiar themes in his letters, such as gospel, righteousness, and faith. In so doing, How to Read Paul provides teachers, students, and interested lay readers with a clear, user-friendly portrait of the apostle, informed by a critical, yet appreciative, integration of the new perspective on Paul, emphasizing the faithfulness of Christ as well as believers' participation in Christ. The first few chapters give an overview of Paul and his letters, while the remaining chapters deal with key theological concepts and their cultural contexts. Discussion questions at the end of each chapter help students focus their reading and reflection on central elements, features, and themes. How to Read Paul is an ideal textbook for both undergraduate and seminary classrooms and a helpful guide for professors, clergy, and lay readers.

1

An Overview of Paul

Paul was a Hellenistic Jew who believed that Jesus, the crucified one, is the Son of God and Messiah. He grew up as a diasporic Jew, devoting himself to the study of the Torah.1 He was proud of his Jewish identity and religion. He was confident in himself, saying he was blameless “as to righteousness under the law” (Phil 3:6).2 But something happened to him during his life that changed his view of God, the law, and the Messiah. In this chapter, we will examine what caused him to change his religious conviction and the reasons for his radical change and will explore what he was trying to do in his new vocation.

Who Is Paul?

In Acts, Paul is described as an apostle endorsed by the Jerusalem church and led by the Holy Spirit. Many of the key events in his life took place in and around Damascus (Acts 9:2–27; 22:5–11; Gal 1:17). In Acts 22:25–29, he is called a Roman citizen, which is also doubtful, since Paul never reveals his citizenship information. He is seen as a friend of Rome and does not seem to challenge Rome. But outside of the claim made in Acts, we do not know whether he was a Roman citizen. Neither do we know when or where Paul was born. Usually, his birth is placed between 10 BCE and 10 CE. This means he is a contemporary of Jesus. Though he does not reveal his hometown, Acts says he is “a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia” (Acts 21:39; 22:3). Tarsus is an important educational city where Paul may have been taught at the feet of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3). But Paul himself is silent about his education or hometown. According to Phil 3:4–8, he grew up as a Jewish boy, “being circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews.” All this means he is a Jew from a renowned Jewish family in the Diaspora and that he takes pride in being a Jew. More than that, he was a Pharisee, which means he was a devout Jew, studying and practicing the Jewish laws thoroughly. He says he felt no blame or guilt about the law. He was satisfied with being a Pharisee, being passionate about the law and his God.3 He also says his passion led him to persecute the church of God (Phil 3:6; 1 Cor 15:9). Likewise, in Gal 1:13–14, he says similar things: “You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.”

Then in 34 CE, about four years after Jesus died, he says he received a revelation about Christ from God: “But when God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, so that I might proclaim him among the gentiles, I did not confer with any human being” (Gal 1:15–16). Paul’s experience of receiving a revelation from God is close to the call of a prophet in the Old Testament. He received a prophetic call from God that he had to proclaim Christ crucified among the gentiles (Gal 1:15–17; 1 Cor 2:2). We can infer that God explained the significance of Jesus’s life and death. Paul previously thought that God was the God of Jews only. But now he believes that God is one for all people and that he is the God of both Jews and gentiles (Rom 3:29–30). With this revelation from God, Paul experienced the grace of Jesus. He thought previously that Jesus failed on the cross, but now he realizes that the death of Jesus is the price for demonstrating God’s righteousness/love (Rom 3:22). Whoever comes to God through Christ’s faithfulness will be reconciled to God and set right with God (Rom 3:26). God justifies both Jews and gentiles on the same basis of faith (Rom 3:30). Now the Abrahamic covenant extends to all through faith.

But this does not mean the law is outdated or ineffective; rather, Paul says the law is holy and upheld (Rom 3:30; 7:12). He argues that Christ clarified the purpose of the law and fulfilled it, as he implies in Rom 10:4: “Christ is the telos of the law.” Telos means “end” or “purpose.” The point is not that Jesus ended the law but that he fulfilled the law, which is the love of God and the love of neighbor (Rom 13:8–10; Gal 5:14).4 He showed to the world that God is love. He did this through his faithfulness. As a result, God’s righteousness was manifested in the world (Rom 3:22). “God’s righteousness” means God’s saving activity or God’s character of love and justice.5 Through Jesus’s act of righteousness, God’s justice and love were revealed.

After receiving God’s revelation of his Son, Paul did not go up to Jerusalem to be endorsed by the Jerusalem apostles. According to Acts 9:26–30, he went to Jerusalem after his conversion. But according to Gal 1:16–17, he went away into Arabia for some time and then returned to Damascus. Arabia is probably the Nabatean kingdom south of Damascus. We do not know why he went there or why he stayed for three years. He probably proclaimed the good news of God to people there and learned further about the gospel of Christ.

In 37 CE, he visited Jerusalem for the first time and briefly met Peter and James, the brother of Jesus. It was not a formal council meeting, which happened fourteen years later. He went again to Jerusalem to attend the Jerusalem Council in 51 CE. After this meeting, he continued on his mission to work in Galatia and Macedonia. In Ephesus, he prepared a final trip to Jerusalem to deliver the collection to the poor saints there. In Romans, his final letter, Paul expresses his intention to go to Jerusalem to deliver the collection, asking his readers to pray for his safe trip (Rom 15:25–26). According to Acts, he made one last trip to Jerusalem but was arrested and taken to Rome for trial. He was under house arrest in Rome. This period falls in about 59–62 CE. Then in 64 CE, he was probably martyred under Nero, as 1 Clem. 6:1 reports. We do not know whether Paul reached Spain for his intended final missionary journey. Acts does not report anything about Paul’s death or his trip to Spain.

Paul as a Practical Theologian

Paul was not a systematic, doctrinal theologian who was interested in formulating systematic theology for later churches or schools. Even as a Pharisee, he was not a quiet scholar of the Torah. When he heard Christians talking about the God of Jews, he could not sit idle watching his God be blasphemed by them. So passionate were his Jewish religious convictions that he persecuted the Christians. This core feature of Paul’s personality remains with him after he received his revelation from God. After his conversion to Christianity, he engages with the world in a different but no less passionate way—proclaiming the gospel of God to the gentiles and claiming Jesus crucified is the Messiah.

His message is rooted in the good news that God is a liberator who chose the weak and despised (1 Cor 1:26–28). Paul’s view of God is different from that of the Stoics who conceptualize God as an abstract idea and emphasize the unity of society. While their ideology seeks to form a unified, hierarchical community in which Zeus is the most supreme god, Paul’s vision is to form a radical community of love, as he says in 1 Cor 1:25–30:

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.

In this passage, Paul contrasts the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God and the power of the world with the strength of God. God does not side with the elite and powerful in the world because they do not take care of the marginalized. God’s foolishness or God’s weakness presents a paradoxical truth that God takes care of those who are nobodies in society. In the Stoic vision of the world, the strong and the wise are taken care of, and they are the foundation of society. But in Paul’s alternative world, God chooses the foolish and the weak. First Cor 1:25–30 is one of the most radical expressions of this theology.6

Paul’s practical theology is also seen in his view of Jesus. He argues that God’s love or righteousness was demonstrated by Jesus, “who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption” (1 Cor 1:30). God’s love is not an abstract idea but was revealed through Christ’s life and death. Jesus gave his life advocating for the weak and the despised. He deconstructed the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of God. In the eyes of the elites, Jesus was foolish or weak because he did not seek his power or wealth. But he was strong because he sought God’s strength. Inspired by Christ’s foolishness, Paul takes the role of being a fool in Christ.7

Paul’s practical theology involves life-changing experiences of spiritual empowerment for everyday people who need freedom from sin and oppression. He persuades people not “with lofty words or wisdom . . . but with a demonstration of the Spirit of power,” as he says to the Corinthians: “When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God” (1 Cor 2:1–5). He proclaimed the gospel of Christ to the Corinthians so that they may live a new life of the Spirit and of power. He wanted them to experience a new life by the power of God. He also told them that “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” (2 Cor 5:17).

Paul’s practical theology entails Christian ethics and participation in Christ. As followers of Jesus, Christians now have a new vocation as “ambassadors for Christ” (2 Cor 5:20). Mere belief in Jesus is not enough. Christian means those who follow Jesus and live by his faithfulness: those who die with him and live to God. To die with Jesus means to put to death the deeds of the body or sinful passion by the Spirit (Rom 8:13). Christians should make every effort to live holy in sanctification and spread the good news of God to all. They are free in Christ because they participate in Christ. If they follow the way of Christ, they will not be defeated by sin. They will serve as “instruments of righteousness,” as Paul says in Rom 6:13: “No longer present your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.”

As we saw previously, Paul’s practical theology is based on his experience with God’s love and Jesus’s grace. The truth of the gospel is that God’s good news or God’s righteousness has been manifested through his Son, Jesus. Now all people may know and experience the love of God through Jesus. Paul’s theology is God centered, Christ exemplified, and Christian imitated. So in Gal 2:20, Paul says Christ is everything for him and that he wants to live by his faith (Christ’s faith): “It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (italics indicate my translation, which emphasizes Christ’s faithfulness).

As a practical theologian, Paul interprets the Scriptures as a story of faith from Abraham’s faith to Jesus’s. God called Abraham out of nowhere and blessed him and made a covenant with him. God also promised him that the whole world will be blessed in him (Gen 12:1–3; Gal 3). This promise of God was fulfilled and confirmed through Christ’s faithfulness. All who follow Jesus and his faithfulness will be blessed and become children of God.

As a practical theologian, Paul responds to those who doubt the resurrection of the dead, and he reaffirms the power of God. Greek philosophy says resurrection is an impossible idea, since the body is rotten and only the soul is immortal. Paul knows this philosophy well and does not disagree with it. He does not say that the earthly body comes back on the last day. The resurrection body is “a spiritual body,” which is an oxymoron to Hellenistic thinkers. While he does not explain what that body is, his point is clear that there is a resurrection of the dead. God has the power to resurrect them. “A spiritual body” is not a scientific statement but Paul’s theological conviction that God cares for humanity, even after death. His point is that we have to trust God and that our faith rests not on ourselves but on God.

As a practical theologian, Paul is confident in his work and yet knows that he is weak. He claims that he is weak and that therefore he is strong (2 Cor 12:9–11). He asserts that he is “the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle” because he persecuted the church of God (1 Cor 15:9). Though his words sound like a rhetorical gesture to appeal to the Corinthians, there is authenticity in them. He remembers who he was and how violently he behaved toward others who were not part of his faction. He goes on to say in 1 Cor 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them—though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Paul was neither a perfect man nor a perfect apostle. Sometimes, he is very emotionally charged and upset, as in Galatians. At other times, he is calm and confident and able to deal with both theological and practical issues, like food offered to idols or the nature of marriage (1 Cor 8–11).

Paul as a Missionary

When he received a new revelation from God, Paul says he did not go to Jerusalem immediately to be endorsed by the Jerusalem apostles but went away into Arabia for some time before returning to Damascus (Gal 1:16–17). While we do not know why he went to Arabia, it seems that he went there to proclaim the good news to its people, including those in the cities of the Decapolis. Then he returned to Damascus and went to Jerusalem. This was a courtesy visit. Then, sometime later, he went on his missionary journeys. According to Acts, he had three journeys, covering Asia Minor and Europe (Acts 13; 16; 19).

On his mission trips, Paul does not stay long in any one place and quickly leaves for another. He does not have enough time to ensure the vitality of the inchoate house church he established. If there are serious local issues, he receives a report from the local church members. Then he responds to them in writing.8 First Corinthians is a good example of this dynamic. The letter is his response to various issues raised ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. An Overview of Paul
• 2. An Overview of Paul’s Letters
• 3. The Gospel (Good News)
• 4. Righteousness/Justification
• 5. Faithfulness
• 6. Freedom
• 7. New Life / New Creation
• 8. The Body of Christ
• 9. The Holy Spirit
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index